Becoming a Terrier Hockey Fan

How I learned to enjoy BU hockey as someone who doesn’t care about sports.

By Siena Griffin

Photo by Xinyi Fu

I’ve never been a sports fan. Ask me which football, baseball, or basketball team I root for, and I’ll respond with the team my sports-loving friends tell me to cheer on. It’s not that I dislike sports, but I never cared enough about any sport to consider myself a fan.

Needless to say, sports did not play a role in my college search. I couldn’t see my social life revolving around gameday when I could barely bring myself to watch the Superbowl (I prefer the Puppy Bowl). BU’s sports culture appealed to me for that reason—without a football team, I felt I would be able to exist peacefully as someone who didn’t understand the hype of attending games every weekend and reposting about my school team’s win on my Instagram story.

Even though BU lacks a football team, I was aware there was still a sport I would have to pretend to keep up with: hockey. I never expected that I would come to enjoy it as much as I do.

On Oct. 1, the night of the first game of the season versus Bentley University, my friends and I made the three-minute trek from our dorm to Agganis Arena. As we found our seats, I was prepared to have a subpar time at my first ever hockey game—prepared to not hate it, but also to decide I wouldn’t go out of my way to attend another.

After watching crowd members let loose on the dance cam, eating overpriced arena ice cream, and fangirling over Rhett the Terrier, it became increasingly difficult for me to not care about this hockey game. It wasn’t just the energy of the arena—the excitement was palpable—but I enjoyed the actual hockey, too. I found myself watching the game intently, celebrating each of BU’s goals, and shouting along with the student section, cheering, “birds aren’t real” (Bentley’s mascot is the falcon), and, “BC sucks” (Boston College does suck).

Attending a hockey game is more than just attending a hockey game. Standing in the student section, decked out in BU merch, and a few feet away from the pep band, I felt my indifference for sports evolve into hesitant appreciation, then to amusement.

I was never a big proponent of school spirit. However, being a part of that red-and-white clad mass of students who didn’t just love hockey but loved our school, made me realize that I did have school spirit, and I loved how that felt.

I took on a role I never thought I would: someone guilty of sharing the occasional @terrierhockey post on my Instagram story. Oh, and I’m now also a sports fan, even if only for a single sport at a single school.